In times of multiple and overlapping crises, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) attributes high importance to the development of inclusive and adaptive social protection systems. BMZ is committed to supporting the expansion of social protection around the globe and works closely with its multilateral and international partners towards achieving this goal. The initiative "AI Hub for Social Protection of DCI" of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and its partners support this endeavor through (i) advising social protection institutions in designing, implementing and governing responsible AI systems and strategies, (ii) creating learning materials and virtual trainings for enhancing AI literacy capacities of social protection practitioners, (iii) creating and sharing knowledge products with and through a sector-wide global expert network and (iv) establishing a digital platform for developing and sharing AI Digital Public Goods (DPGs) in Social Protection (SP) including standards, data sets and software.
The AI Hub for Social Protection is an endeavor of the Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI) which was launched in 2021 under the umbrella of the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP2030), with a view to harmonization and standardization of the digital ecosystem in social protection. Under the DCI structure, the AI Hub supports countries in navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of AI while promoting the principles of responsible, innovative and sovereign AI adoption within unique country contexts.
During its inception phase the AI Hub will collaborate with a group of core partners to shape its strategic and thematic orientation. Among these core partners there are institutions with strong sectoral and technical expertise and a demonstrated commitment to contributing to global processes. This includes the Ministry for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the construction sector (BG BAU), the Federation of German Pension Insurance Institutions (DRV Bund), the International Social Security Association (ISSA), and DataPrev, a Social Security Information and Technology Enterprise of the Brazilian government responsible for managing the social data of the National Social Security Institute (INSS). Their engagement will be instrumental in driving the Hub"s four key areas of activity: country support, knowledge creation and sharing, capacity development and digital public goods and standards.
The application of AI in social protection systems holds immense potential to improve efficiency, inclusion, and adaptability - essential factors for safeguarding vulnerable populations in times of crisis. Yet, challenges such as missing or weak AI governance and regulatory frameworks, lack of expertise regarding where and how to best deploy AI-driven solutions as well as limited technical expertise or low availability of high-quality data can prevent governments from fully leveraging these benefits. As AI advances rapidly, social protection institutions struggle to keep pace, limiting their ability to harness the benefits of AI for enhancing their social protection systems, while upholding human rights and ensuring equitable access to services.
To date, the AI Hub"s services have been primarily delivered through digital social protection experts from the field of international development cooperation with deep sectoral expertise in building inclusive, interoperable, and harmonized digital social protection systems. These experts possess extensive experience supporting governments in their digital transformation efforts, particularly within low- and middle-income countries characterized by limited resources and digital maturity.
While highly valuable, this expertise alone does not encompass the full spectrum of skills and capabilities necessary to implement the AI Hub activities and particularly, deliver its strategic and technical advisory services supported by proven methodologies and tools to social protection institutions in an efficient and effective manner for guiding them on their responsible AI adoption journey.
Recognizing the emerging and rapidly evolving landscape of AI technologies and their potential to transform social protection systems, this procurement aims to contract a project team encompassing interdisciplinary, specialized AI and digital transformation experts for public sector clients with an extensive background in management and technology consulting with regard to AI strategy and implementation from the private sector. These experts will complement existing sectoral specialists and bring critical additional capabilities to the AI Hub"s service delivery and strategic development.
Consultants under this contract shall closely work together with other AI Hub staff such as the before mentioned digital social protection experts, thereby ensuring an active and systematic knowledge exchange, beneficial for the overall project.

The contractor will provide a pool of experts to contribute to the respective work packages detailed below. All country-specific activities will be implemented jointly with GIZ and its implementing partners. The global activities will involve cooperation with the global team at GIZ"s headquarters.

Work Package 1: Strategic and Technical AI Advisory Services for Country Support
This work package constitutes the core offering of the AI Hub"s advisory services, aimed at supporting social protection institutions across diverse countries-particularly low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)-in responsibly exploring, designing, and implementing AI solutions. The consultants engaged under this package will provide end-to-end strategic and technical guidance tailored to each country"s unique operational, regulatory, and socio-economic context.
The overarching goal is to strengthen institutional capacities and processes for more inclusive, effective, and efficient social protection systems by:
- Enabling informed, ethical, and context-sensitive AI adoption and governance.
- Supporting governments in shaping AI strategies and regulatory frameworks aligned with national priorities and policy objectives.
- Promoting equity and inclusion of digital social protection systems through AI adoption, particularly safeguarding the most vulnerable population groups.
- Promoting digital sovereignty and long-term sustainability for developing, deploying and using AI systems.
Services will be delivered in close coordination with relevant stakeholders, government entities, local development partners and technology service providers, civil society, and international development cooperation organizations-to foster trust, ensure local ownership, and build robust partnerships.
The consultants will deliver expertise across the following ten interlinked areas, while ensuring that relevant insights and learnings are documented and shared, so they can inform the overall AI Hub project across its other three action areas of Knowledge Production and Sharing, DPG and Standard development, as well as Skills and Capacity Building.
Work Package 2: Standards and Digital Public Goods (DPGs)
This work package focuses on promoting and enhancing the digital ecosystem necessary for the responsible and effective use of AI in social protection systems. A key priority is to harness expertise and innovation from outside the public sector-including academia, civil society, and the private sector-to support the development of Digital Public Goods (DPGs), as defined by the DPG Alliance (DPGA), tailored for government use.
By facilitating the collaborative development of open-source tools, standards, guidelines, for DPGs, the AI Hub will foster AI-based solutions which adhere to open source standards such as defined by the Open Source Initiative and / or Creative Commons). Thus, AI-based software and applications are accessible, re-usable, can be modified, studied, used and redistributed without restrictions and licensing fees, and are adaptable to diverse country contexts. These tools will be designed to be interoperable, ethically sound, and scalable-enabling governments to accelerate digital transformation while maintaining sovereignty, transparency, and inclusion. This work package aims to bridge silos, promote cross-sector collaboration, and catalyze innovation across countries and partners.

Work Package 3: Skills and Capacity Development on responsible AI adoption
This package aims to equip key stakeholders in social protection institutions -policy makers, social protection experts, decision-makers, and technical staff-with the necessary understanding, skills, and practices to responsibly adopt AI within social protection systems.
Developing a sound, low-threshold, low-resource intense capacity development concept for the AI Hub addresses the critical need to close skills and capability gaps in social protection institutions, so social protection practitioners and technical experts are enabled to harness AI responsibly to enhance their social protection systems. This overall concept includes designing and implementing a sound methodological learning journey tailored to the most pressing capacity building needs of different key target groups in social protection institutions.
Recognizing that much of the innovation in AI originates outside the public sector, the AI Hub will curate and translate relevant insights, methods, and lessons from adjacent fields-such as health, education, and the private tech ecosystem-into actionable knowledge tailored to the social protection context.
It combines self-paced e-learning (videos, modules, toolkits) with instructor-led virtual learning journeys. Through modular, persona-based learning paths, the program will build foundational AI and data literacy, demystify AI applications in social protection, and embed governance, ethics, and data stewardship at every stage-aligned with international best practices. Learning will be contextualized through real-world use cases, enabling participants to design, implement, and govern AI tools in their own institutional environments.

For the implementation of work packages 1-3 described above , the tenderer is required to provide a team leader (20 expert days), an IT/AI development lead (40 days), a project coordinator (30 expert days), as well as 3 expert pools: AI strategy consultants (150 days), technical AI consultants (140 days) and capacity development experts (45 days).
Individual trips of various experts, especially in the context of Work package 1, will be required.

GIZ may optionally commission contract amendments and/or increases based on the criteria in the tender documents to the successful bidder of this tender. For details, please see the terms of reference.

According to Article 160, Section 3 of the German Act Against Restraint of Competition (GWB), application for review is not permissible insofar as
1. the applicant has identified the claimed infringement of the procurement rules before submitting the application for review and has not submitted a complaint to the contracting authority within a period of 10 calendar days; the expiry of the period pursuant to Article 134, Section 2 remains unaffected,
2. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that are evident in the tender notice are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for the application or by the deadline for the submission of bids, specified in the tender notice.
3. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that first become evident in the tender documents are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for application or by the deadline for the submission of bids,
4. more than 15 calendar days have expired since receipt of notification from the contracting authority that it is unwilling to redress the complaint.
Sentence 1 does not apply in the case of an application to determine the invalidity of the contract in accordance with Article 135, Section 1 (2). Article 134, Section 1, Sentence 2 remains unaffected.

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The execution conditions result from the information given in the contract notice and the tender documents.